Valery Sakhashchyk

Valery Stepanovich Sakhashchyk (, ; born 13 August 1964) is a former commander of the Belarusian 38th Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade.

Sakhashchyk was involved in organizing the 1st Separate Air Assault Company "Belarus", a unit of Belarusian volunteers fighting within the 79th Air Assault Brigade of Ukraine. He also personally took part in military operations.

Childhood and education Valery Sakhashchyk was born on 13 August 1964 in , Drahichyn District, when Belarus was part of the Soviet Union. He and his family moved to Drahichyn when he started school. Sakhashchyk was an avid reader of adventure books involving travel and military conflict, motivating him to aim at a air force career.

Russian invasion of Ukraine After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, Sakhashchyk published a video appeal calling for Belarusians to refuse to participate in the invasion. He argued that there were three reasons for refusing to participate: that Ukraine had never threatened Belarus; that the Ukrainian government was freely elected and not constituted of drug addicts or far-right nationalists; and that it would be illegal under the Belarusian Constitution for Belarusian forces to enter Ukraine.

On 24 June 2023, during the Wagner Group rebellion in Russia, Sakhashchyk released a video interpreting the rebellion as a sign that the Russian Federation would "fall apart sooner or later". He saw the situation as requiring a decision to either "use [the] historical chance and become a prosperous European country" or "lose everything". He called for the Belarusian military to assert Belarusian independence from Russia, to "unite the nation" and to "watch this space".